Monica da Silva

Thursday, 07 June 2012

Hey, just a reminder that Céu will be in Minneapolis this June 15 at her usual stop-in at the Dakota Jazz Club. Previously, Céu had local artists open up for her, but this time, she's touring with a labelmate, Curumin, from Six Degrees Records.

Just to give you a little background on Curumin, his name is Luciano Nakata Albuquerque, and he is half Spanish and half Japanese. According to his biography, the correct pronunciation of Curumin is koo-roo-meen.

I have decided to sample some of his music, and I have to say: it's danceable electronic! Check out "Selvage", it's got a great beat. I don't know if it's a Portuguese, but in English, that's the unraveling edges of a fabric (or the edges of a stamp). The song comes from their new album, Arrocha, which just came out June 5th, 2012.

Composer and trumpet player Ibrahim Maalouf is from Lebanon, but I think he's currently based in France? I could be wrong, but in Paris, he recruited Zalindê, a 17-member, all-female, Brazilian-style batucada ensemble to blast out potent rhythm tracks for his latest album Diagnostic.

Maalouf explains, "Since it's my music, I choose what I think is beautiful. For example, I love Balkan trumpets, and I really love Brazilian batucadas, and when you put a Brazilian rhythm under trumpets playing an Arab melody with a Balkan feel, I think it sounds really good. So I did it."

Maalouf will be performing on June 21, 2012 at Drom and as part of Make Music New York at the French Embassy cultural services.